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Morgan Stanley marked International Women's Day this week with a panel discussion on how women can raise their profiles at work.

Leaders from the financial, legal and regulatory worlds, hosted by the US investment bank’s Women's Business Alliance, stressed the importance of women planning their careers and being vocal about their goals at an event on Monday night.

Here are three simple, but key, things women can do to improve their personal brand:

• Ask for what you want

Angelie Moledina, co-head of European government bond and agencies cash and CDS trading at Morgan Stanley, joined the firm in its graduate analyst program in 1996. Moledina, who is also one of Financial News' FN100 Women in Finance, recalled realising that she had to speak up for a promotion she felt she deserved even though the prospect of doing this was intimidating.

“We like to think that if we do a good job, people will notice and we’ll be promoted, but you have to let people know what you want. I had to define what I wanted, who would make it happen and how I could deliver on it,” she said.

• Volunteer for projects that put you outside of your normal realm of work

Ruth Fox, partner and head of financial regulation at Slaughter and May, discussed her experience rising to the partner level in the firm, a move that required support from a number of firm leaders.

“It’s not necessarily easy at first, but I realised I had to outside of my comfort zone and have a go at things where I was going to be seen by a different group of people. I thought about what they needed to see me do to be willing to speak up for me at the crucial moment,” she said.

Barbara Ridpath, chief executive of the International Centre for Financial Regulation, added that volunteering for seemingly riskier tasks often has the potential to increase your exposure to top executives who need expertise in those specific areas.

"Foreign postings in particular mean you get higher exposure to senior executives that come through town, than you would in head office," she said.

• Don't get chained to your desk

When she set out to progress through the ranks within Morgan Stanley, Moledina said she decided to spend about 20% of her day walking around talking to people about business-related matters to gain visibility.

“What I realised was that my male peers were already doing this,” she said, adding that as a manager having a finger on the pulse of her business area became increasingly important.

She also stressed the importance of “professional friends” or colleagues that provide an internal network.